forum Let's talk about our wonderful children(who we've all done terrible things to)!

Started March 06, 2019 by @primaldesire

tune

Me: I'm going to start drafting this scene!
Me, later on: And then I didn't….

That's a big mood

Me: I'm going to write an important scene in my current WIP!
Inner Me: Write pure and soft fluffy scenes with characters in a story you're not even focusing on right now.

Oh… can't relate to that one. I can't write fluff to save my life, and it makes me sad.

My friends: Why do you hurt your characters so much?!
Me:

Me: I’m going to add a chapter to my story I haven’t updated for a year.
Me, sitting in my writing app: Maybe I’ll just go and listen to music for a few minutes..

On another note, talking about my characters, I feel bad for my boy Empirean shortly after the death of his mother (making him the last of his species/branch of that specific breed) As I said once before, being a kaiju is metal. Empirean gets betrayal by close friend then proceeds to have his left eye blinded/removed. (Haven’t decided what I’m gonna do with it yet.) Then that was sort of the turning point for him in personality and he wasn’t really “Friend to all kaiju,” he was more “end to all kaiju.” Definitely not as aggressive as his grandmother or mother however. And he’s still pretty friendly with humans but when I write my kaiju (most of them) I don’t forget the fact that they’re still an animal and thus probably won’t have the same attributes as humans.

All of my friends: "You're so violent in your books. Why are you like that?"
Me: writing a slaughter scene "I am not."
Them: "You literally just killed an entire city."
Me: Rubbing hands together menacingly "Burn them all."

But seriously I am soooo mean to me characters. And the readers as well. I make a character, keep them around just long enough to make everyone think that they're important enough not to die, then the next page I kill them. In my first book, the prologue alone almost kills two of the main characters. They barely make it out of a burning kingdom alive. My second book the first chapter I kill one of them, and leave his brother with absolutely no family.
Writers are just so mean to their characters. My excuse is that it's better to take out my issues on fictional characters than on real people. But when I do actually kill a character that was i big part of the story, I feel bad for the next week. Anyone else do that? Feel bad for killing one of your characters I mean.

Ayyy I burned down several villages in my story! High five!
But yes, I do feel bad sometimes. Heck, I've even cried while writing death scenes.

My character Stephen is a 17 yo that basically has the responsibilities and mentality of a 20something yo, he's addicted to gambling, and he's in charge of running this massive resort-type place, a la Lotus Casino but decidedly more child unfriendly, where you can see a nice opera and/or get drunk af in one night. He has 1 close friend, a guy who's his adviser of sorts before he has to take another job working for the sworn enemy of Stephen's family. He lives in an anarchy so it's like 150% chaos and he (tentatively) dies at the end.
Well, at least he gets some friends before that?

On the flip side, I just finished the profile for an ancient nonbinary faery who takes the form of an 11 year old child and leads people astray or to safety through the forest, based on why the traveler is headed into the woods in the first place, and I really love them! They're mischevious and playful (because they rotate between acting 11 and acting 1000-ish, and no one knows how old they are besides themself) but also can be a Chaotic Neutral force to be reckoned with.

Ayyy I burned down several villages in my story! High five!
But yes, I do feel bad sometimes. Heck, I've even cried while writing death scenes.

Ayyy, I have also cried writing death scenes for my characters. Why are we like this? Also, high five!

I’ve never full on cried writing scenes for my characters, but I don’t deny I feel sad.

One of my kaiju, Arashi, as much of a pest he was to the characters of the story he was a pretty cool character overall which is part of the reason why I decided to have more of his species involved in the story. And probably make some short comics for him. Felt sad knowing he’d die though.

Oh, I had to kill off the character who kind of helped me discover who I was, so that was fun. Only time I full-on sobbed writing a character death.

My main character Tolkalee Sylali is probably the best character I've ever made. I'm gonna keep him around for a long time, however in the end I am going to kill him. It makes me sad just thinking about it. This also might be something that makes me a horrible human being, but I'm going to try to make his death as sad as possible.

Character: Tragic backstory, is the victim, goes down a bad path but is redeemable due to being the victim, makes bad choices, is punished, seeks to redeem self, is sorta redeemed but not really but still sorta
Me: That's horrific, my good child. waves magic writer hands.
Character: Tragic backstory, is the victim, goes down a bad path, manipulates people, destroys many lives, makes bad choices, continues to manipulate people, makes more bad choices, anarchy, fire, corruption, is defeated, is punished, curses the world
Me: Ah chaos

…On another note my characters are usually made to have some sort of traumatic past and then are forced to face it. Imagine someone forcing your face into a bed of white-hot coals. I like to imagine that's what I'm doing to my characters except metaphorically because most of my characters would stab me more than once with ease.

I also have a bad habit of setting up a character to die and then when I develop the character I end up getting really attached and it makes me feel things

I also have a bad habit of setting up a character to die and then when I develop the character I end up getting really attached and it makes me feel things

Yes, I do that too.

I cackled when I read Umbitch, because TRUE!

Me: "I'm going to write fluffy ending, the poor characters deserve it"

Also Me: 10x the angst, characters are dead

I often have regrets when I write stuff for my characters because I know that they deserve better but I just keep pouring the fuel. I don't think I'll ever be ready when I forced to sit down and actually write what happens between one of my main characters and their ex. It is such a tragic story of how his life was supossed to get better after this but it just messed things up even worse to the point that he has little to no confidence that someone could love him or who he is :,).

I regret killing off a character in a trilogy book series I wrote because I realize now that she could've lived and there was an alternative way for them to solve the conflict without killing her, but now I'm two books in and bringing her back isn't an option now…cause she's dead. :C